Chinese and Manchu

Linguistic anachronism in Chinese televsion

CHECK out the great post on our sister blog Analects on the use—and non-use—of China's regional and historical languages in period television dramas. The gist: these shows have the Manchus (and Mao and others) speaking nothing but fluent modern Mandarin, when they did no such thing.

The erasure of Manchu language from period dramas is of course a matter of artistic expedience, but it is also one of the many small and subtle ways the educational and media environment in the People's Republic of China reinforces an orthodox interpretation of Chinese history, one which emphasises continuity and unity.

Er.. is this also not complete true of US historical dramas? I remember reading once that there was almost 10% German speaking population at one point in the colonial era, and this is always ignored.

Also, the Western Areas were obviously Spanish or Indian language speaking, but this is always subsumed into English.

China isn´t the only country with a fantasy narrative of historical unity.

Rather, in any time, a society will always identify with winners, which has been English speakers and Mandarin administrators in those two respective societies. German landless peasants who settled in Pennsylvania? Who cares. Rub them out of history.

Is RLG fixated on the Chinese language? Why not a piece on the Linguistic Anachronism of English in American Television? That ought to be an even richer gold mine and a great deal more interesting to more readers. No? And other languages as well besides Chinese and English. For example, "Linguistic Anachronism" in:

We know many many many more TE readers know about most of these languages and know them very well. Fewer readers know about Chinese and fewer yet know it well. Might this be a repeat of "Pin Yin is written Chinese" all over again?

BTW, Mao spoke Hunanese, and Deng Szechuanese, both regional dialects very close to Mandarin. A little like Lyndon Johnson's Texan, Clinton's Arkansas and FDR's New York. Not enough egg white to spin a colossal souffle with.

I end with a quote from Reader Kushluk's comment @June 22nd, 18:23:

" Er.. is this also not completely true of US historical dramas? I remember reading once that there was almost 10% German speaking population at one point in the colonial era, and this is always ignored.
Also, the Western Areas were obviously Spanish or Indian language speaking, but this is always subsumed into English."

Johnson has already left a record of not knowing terribly much about the Chinese language while blogging about it as if he knew. This as Editor of a Language Blog of a paper of international circulation. Why Johnson insists on promulgating disinformation about this language is anyone’s guess. At some point, the insistence will begin to raise more eyebrows in the wider linguistic community.

I have invited Johnson in my earlier comment to address the same- “anachronism” in any of the other languages he knows so much better, like English, and Arabic , and French ,and Portuguese , and Spanish , and Danish …. Most of these languages (cf. Varq’s Varq’s, 0mn1's, TracyD's comments), will also show that various aspects of their usages have eroded over time, and in many cases, regional dialects have become extinct. Thus "anachronism"(Johnson's term) is not a Chinese matter, but a common matter to the evolution of languages in all linguistic cultures.

Also, @east-wind, this blog is virtually troll-free. Most commenters are genuine, highly educated, and know the languages they talk about. We want to respect the tradition. We are good. But others less good might follow. Let’s set good examples.

In my experience travelling in China, I found the most regional languages and dialects are alive and well, spoken daily in most main street and markets out side the main large cities.
In fact one can rarely go beyond the basic in everyday social intercourse with standard common speech (standard Mandarine ) alone. In some places you would have great difficulty in even simply buying an orange in the market.
The Manchus suffer from having conquered a great land mass, had to disperse themselves thinly. Once having lost their privilege position and exclusive enclave, it became difficult to maintain a separate language and identity amongst the local population.
Western writers seems to harbour a hidden desire for the Balkanization of China.

Linguistic anachronism is a common annoyance in most English-language historical drama, even that from recent history such as the mid-twentieth century.
Anyone with a few years on him or her will pick up clangers in most programmes set in the nineteen sixties or seventies and anyone who has read any literature will certainly pick up anachronisms in drama or comedy set in earlier times.
I recently heard someone say, "I need you to..." do something, in a story set in the Second World War. This construction has only become common as a cumbersome and unclear means of making a request or giving an instruction in very recent years.
And in a drama set in the Middle Ages in which a young girl's parent were arranging her marriage whe wailed, "But what about how I feel?" Such a use of "feel", as well as the expectation that anyone would care, would have been utterly alien to the young noblewoman of the time.
I imagine that all languages are subject to similar anachronism.

There is nothing called linguistic anachronism in Chinese television. The simple truth is that we Chinese are not able to fallow one another if dialects are spoken in television series. Considering that there are altogether 8 branches existing in spoken Chinese, if each character in the play chooses one dialect to communicate with his partners on the stage, he is surely to make his listeners frustrated, let alone the audiences or viewers of the drama. Again, there is never such a thing as an orthodox interpretation of Chinese history when it comes to the use of Mandarin. Only 20 years ago, people from northern or central part of China couldn’t understand Cantonese when they visited there. But now the majority people the province prefer Mandarin when talking to travelers there. Yes. There are hundreds or thousands of dialects in China in term of Chinese language or Hanyu. But the words or Chinese characters in use are the same. And why not choose a standard verbal communication to vehicle our feeling? Manchu and other languages used by ethnic groups in China are well preserved and taught in primary schools in a few autonomous regions in China. Printed on RMB Chinese currency alongside with Han language are ethnic languages, Manchu included. The purpose of language, especially spoken language is to converse. And there are hundreds or even thousands of languages or dialects or spoken languages that have vanished in process of evolution, Latin included. Latin or Latium was once an official language and orthodox language in church in the middle ages. But right now who ever speaks or writes in that language?

Han Chinese have rewritten history for millennia. Personally, I believe that ancient Chinese civilisation owes a lot to the nomadic "tribes" of Central Asia (including the now extinct Tocharians? lol). Horses and chariots probably came to China from the "steppes of Central Asia".
But moving forward to more recent times, even Marco Polo's book contains vivid descriptions of various ethnicities, languages and religions (Tanguts and Nestorians for example) that are no longer "allowed to exist" in "Greater China". The Han Chinese have taken care of that!

actually after a few generations, the manchu conquerors voluntarily chose Chinese over their own language. Only the emperors who had the best education can speak good manchu.
Later on the very existence of the language only became symbolic in some court use. I do find the anachronism become more often in the screen, that is also why I distant myself from TV for many years. Partly I think because fewer people have the knowledge of classic Chinese, or they may think it is profitable to carter to younger generation by dumbbing down.

顶！ :)
typical pride-and-prejudice blog input by a "it-is-said-that linguist".
when we studied linguistics back in college, we are taught to be as neutral and detached as possible for better understanding language as a whole.

English "was born out of the dialects of three German tribes (Angles, Jutes, and Saxons) who settled in Britain in about 450 A.D. This group of dialects forms what linguists refer to as Anglo-Saxon, and at some point this language developed into what we know as Old English. This Germanic base was influenced in varying degrees by Celtic, Latin, and Scandinavian (Old Norse) - the languages spoken by invading armies.

When William the Conqueror became king of England, French took over as the language of the court, administration, and culture - and stayed there for 300 years. Meanwhile, English was "demoted" to everyday, unprestigious uses. These two languages existed side by side in England with no noticeable difficulties; in fact, since English was essentially ignored by grammarians during this time, it took advantage of its lowly status to become a grammatically simpler language and, after only 70 or 80 years existing side-by-side with French, Old English segued into Middle English.

During the Norman occupation, about 10,000 French words were adopted into English, some three-fourths of which are still in use today."

Except Christopher Plummer, of course. He spoke fluent Canadian English, not the same thing at all. :-)
I agree with you. I don't like movies in which Japanese or German officers, for instance, speak English and would prefer that the appropriate language be used with sub-titles as was done, respectively, in "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "The Longest Day". And I loathe the egregious dubbing. What a way to ruin a movie! The majority of the movie audience, at least the US audience, judging by comments I've heard in interviews, does not, however, agree with me.

My son is 34 & has Asperger Autism. He cannot hold a job & has no friends. People treat him horribly when they realize he's different & he has a heart of gold. I don't know what to do, I cry for him all the time. I know he's lonely, I need direction & help!

Of course you are right. Julie Andrews' is Engligh English. Because she and Carol Burnett are very close friends, I always lump them together. My fondest English "accent" is spoken by Audrey Hepburn. Can you tell me what hers is? (Born Brussels, spent childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands)